Bangladesh Journalism Caught in Intensifying Political Crossfire The political atmosphere in Bangladesh is becoming increasingly contentious as the incumbent government reaches the end of its tenure and elections near. At the centre of the controversy is the effort by the Awami League, the party now in power, to fulfil the agenda that has been a constant priority since Bangladesh won its independence in 1971: to bring to justice those guilty of war crimes during the country’s nine-month long war of liberation. Part of the agenda of accountability was fulfilled when five former army officers accused of the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, leader of Bangladesh’s liberation war, were executed in January 2010. Shortly afterwards, the first indictments were issued by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) set up in accordance with a 1973 act, for suspected war criminals from 1971.

The course of the ICT has not been smooth. Indeed, its procedures have led to a variety of wilful blindness on the part of some among the media in Bangladesh, eager to see the process concluded swiftly if not fairly. In other sections, the ICT procedures have engendered a degree of dissent and disgruntlement. This rather polarised media response has deepened existing divisions within the country, especially when proceedings within the two benches of the ICT moved towards a decisive phase late in 2012.

In December 2012, seditions charges were laid against Amar Desh, a Bangla-language daily published from the national capital Dhaka, after it published what were purportedly the transcripts of telephone conversations and emails exchanged between the head of the ICT and an overseas expert on war crimes jurisprudence. The material was originally published on the website of the London-based weekly newspaper, The Economist, and records the head of the first bench of the ICT, Justice Mohammad Nizamul Haq “Nasim”, speaking about the undue pressure he faced from the Government to conclude the trials swiftly, even at the cost of due process. The rest of the discussions were about professional matters of war crimes jurisprudence. Immediately, there were questions raised about the propriety of an incumbent judge in a sensitive matter receiving advice from an extraneous source without placing it on official record.

Soon after the material was reproduced in Amar Desh, the chief prosecutor of the ICT moved the High Court of Bangladesh for action under the sedition law and the country’s Information Technology Act, which prohibits the unauthorised recording of private telephone conversations and email messages. Justice Nizamul Haq “Nasim” resigned his position when the controversy erupted. A second bench of the ICT soon afterwards issued an injunction against further media reporting of the allegedly hacked conversations and messages. A motion by the defence for staying proceedings before the first bench on the grounds that it had been vitiated by advice received from undeclared sources, was denied on the grounds that the recording of the judge’s conversations was done through illegal means and could not be taken on record.

The Economist meanwhile, declined to identify the sources of the hacked conversations, on the grounds that such information, if revealed, would put these sources in physical danger. It defended the decision to publish the material on the grounds of “compelling public interest” and transparency in the administration of justice. Amar Desh, its editor Mahmudur Rahman (who is formally designated as “acting editor”) and publisher Hasmat Ali were charged with sedition for bringing the proceedings of the Tribunal into disrepute and seeking to undermine public faith in its proceedings. The High Court called for a report within two weeks on the action the government intended to take against the newspaper. From that moment on, fearing arrest, Mahmudur Rahman himself confined to his office. An application for anticipatory bail was not turned down.

On 3 February 2013, the second bench of the ICT arrived at a guilty verdict against a prominent Islamist politician, Abdul Qader Molla, and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Protests spearheaded by youth groups erupted across the country, demanding that his crimes merited the death penalty. On 5 February, a number of youth groups gathered at Shahbagh Square in the capital city, which they transformed into a two-month long tableau of protest and cultural activism. In the main driven by youth in their twenties and early-thirties – who were not even born at the time of the country’s war of liberation – the protests made ample and creative use of the new means of communication available through mobile phones, blogs and the social media. At some point, the demands escalated beyond accountability for war crimes, to a possible ban on the country’s principal Islamist party, the Jamaat e-Islami (JEI), which has been

an influential player in Bangladesh politics, with the ability in tight contests, to tilt the balance of national advantage between the two main parties.

On 16 February Ahmed Rajib Haidar, an activist in the Shahbagh movement who ran a blog attacking the religious influence over politics, was hacked to death in the neighbourhood of his home as he was returning from the day’s protests. The protesters were quick to blame the Islamist parties for the killing.

Amar Desh reported soon afterwards that some of the bloggers active in the Shahbagh Square protests had posted material grossly offensive to the faith of the majority in Bangladesh. This led to calls from the Islamist parties, which have always been deeply sceptical about the war crimes process, for dispersal of the gathering of “atheists” and the arrest and prosecution of the offenders among them. On 28 February 2013, the second bench of the ICT arrived at a guilty verdict in the case against Delawar Hossein Sayedee, a prominent JEI leader. The death sentence he was awarded led to nation-wide protests by the JEI and the prospect of a frontal clash with the Shahbagh demonstrators. The march to Shahbagh that the JEI embarked on was fired on by police, leading to a number of deaths. JEI militants are also believed to have attacked members of Bangladesh’s religious minority that day.

There were demands made then for the criminal prosecution of certain newspapers for for false and misleading reporting. The Government though evidently irked, did not respond to this particular demand. Information Minister Hasanul Huq Inu did late in February 2013, publicly suggest that three Bangla-language newspapers, Amar Desh, Naya Diganta and Sangram, were spreading propaganda against the ongoing movement at Shahbagh. This was for him, part of a deeper ideological agenda of the three dailies, which he held to be “ideologically” opposed to the war of liberation. Indeed, the owners and editors of these newspapers he said, were guilty of the crime of “instigation” of the genocide committed during the war of liberation.

The Minister also made an explicit charge that some of the purportedly offensive blog content had been doctored by the Islamist parties with the connivance of sympathetic media organisations. This was, he said, an abuse of the freedom of the press, since the three newspapers seemed to be concocting offensive material which they attributed to the Shahbagh protesters, including the slain Ahmed Rajib Haidar. In response to a specific question on the legal options available to the government, the Minister said that all possibilities were being explored.

Editor, bloggers arrested Political compulsions dictated seemingly, that the Government should take out an insurance against a possible political backlash from the Islamists. In early April 2013, in an obvious effort to defuse the political potential of outraged religious sensibilities, the Bangladesh Home Ministry ordered the arrest of four young men for their allegedly “atheistic” blogs. Subrata Adhikari Shuvo, Russel Parvez and Mashiur Rahman Biplob, were arrested late night on 1 April and remanded to seven days in custody for interrogation the following day. On 3 April, Asif Mohiuddin was arrested and remanded the day after, to three days in police custody. The Bangladesh Home Minister meanwhile, warned that the Government had a list of another seven “atheist bloggers” who would be closely watched and, if necessary, arrested.

On 11 April, Mahmudur Rahman, Amar Desh editor was taken into custody by a team of policemen who arrived at his office early in the morning. He was remanded to thirteen days in police custody, ostensibly for interrogation in three cases that have been filed against him under provisions of law dealing with sedition, cyber-security and abetment to mob violence. The sedition case stemmed from the publication the purported transcripts of telephone conversations and emails published in Amar Desh in December. Charges of incitement, in turn, stem from stories published in the newspaper about the allegedly “blasphemous” blog posts put out by youth protestors gathered at Shahbagh square.

When presented before the concerned magistrate for remand, Mahmudur Rahman said that he would not apply for bail since he was sure of being denied. The Government he said, had lost all shame and was embarked on a reign of terror.

Following the closure of its press by the authorities, Amar Desh was published for two days from another press in Dhaka city. Late on the evening of 13 April, these premises were raided by a police team which seized printed copies of the newspaper meant for distribution the following day. Some nineteenth journalists of Amar Desh, who were working on the day’s edition were also detained and a case registered against the manager of the press and Mahmuda Begum, the seventy-four year old mother of the editor. At a press conference the following day,

the lawyer for the Amar Desh editor accused the Government of contempt, since the Supreme Court of Bangladesh had through an earlier order, restrained it from stopping the publication of the newspaper.

Journalists in Bangladesh are disturbed by these developments and by the government’s stated intent to monitor blog content and initiate criminal action against alleged offenders. The politically fraught atmosphere has also led to a number of attacks on journalists which may be targeted or quite possibly opportunistic. There have been few investigations to determine what the reality is. Late on the night of 11 March 2013, the car in which Nayeemul Islam Khan, editor of the daily newspaper Amader Orthoneeti, and his wife Nasima Khan, were returning from a late-night social function, was attacked with cocktail bombs near the Mohakhali flyover in Dhaka city. Nayeemul and Nasima Khan sustained splinter injuries on their face and upper body and were admitted at a nearby hospital for treatment. Sources indicated that the incident had all the hallmarks of a planned attack. Nayeemul Khan had been a frequent commentator on the political controversies that were then getting ever more acrimonious and his opinions expressed on television talk shows might well have offended one among the two contending parties.

On 5 April 2013, the Hefajat-e-Islam (HEI), a little known grouping of orthodox religiosity, began a long march from Bangladesh’s eastern port city of Chittagong to Dhaka, to protest what they portrayed as the growing mood of irreligiosity. The day the march departed from Chittagong, Mohim Mirza, a reporter of Ekattor TV, was assaulted as he covered the event. When the march reached Dhaka, with its demands that “atheist” bloggers be given the death penalty and women be confined to their homes in accordance with tradition, at least four journalists assigned to covering the event were assaulted. These included one woman, Nadia Sharmeen, a reporter assigned to cover the event by Ekushey TV, who was seemingly targeted for precisely that reason.

Following this incident in the Motijheel area of Dhaka, Nadia Sharmeen spoke to the media from a hospital where she was taken for treatment. Her purse and mobile phone had allegedly been snatched by the attackers who reportedly told her that it was not a woman’s job to cover the rally. Nadia was allowed to go home after treatment, but advised a week’s rest to get over the injuries and trauma. A number of other female journalists were also reportedly attacked during the rally, though they opted not to report the matter or identify themselves.

Mohsin Kabir and Khurshed Alam, reporter and cameraperson from SA Television, were assaulted and Khurshed’s camera snatched while they were recording an interview with some leaders of the HEI in the Paltan area. Khurshed was admitted to a hospital with serious wounds, while Mohsin was released after treatment. Sohel Rana, a cameraperson with ATN News was also injured in the day’s events, when he was attacked with sticks by political activists in front of Notre Dame College. In the Savar area of Dhaka city, TV camerapersons Abul Halim of Baishakhi and Nazmul Huda of Ekushey reported attempts to snatch their cameras as they shot footage of the HEI march being blocked by police. Divisions over process The war crimes process was expected to lay to rest some of the ghosts of Bangladesh’s troubled past, but may in fact, have had the opposite consequence, of deepening existing fissures. As reported in the South Asia Press Freedom Report for 2012 (New Frontiers, New Challenges, May 2012) the ICT during its early life set down what seemed unreasonable boundaries for media reporting, when it cited Nurul Kabir, editor of the English-language daily New Age, for contempt. The provocation for this was a report titled “A crucial period for International Crimes Tribunal” authored by David Bergman, editor for special investigations, that New Age carried on 2 October 2011. The ICT took objection to certain of the points made in the article and issued a notice asking why the writer, along with the editor and publisher of the newspaper, should not be cited for contempt.

Particular sections of the article that found mention in the notice, referred to the public mood which seemingly had prejudged the guilt of some of the individuals up for trial before the ICT, as also the procedural weakness of seeking convictions in capital crimes going back four decades, merely on the basis of single witness testimonies. The article also pointed out that the ICT had allowed fifteen unsigned witness statements out of the forty-seven that the prosecution had moved for. It raised questions about the ICT’s rigour in assessing all witness depositions before purported offences were taken cognisance of.

Kabir presented a detailed response to the ICT on 23 October 2011, speaking of the wide range of issues involved in establishing accountability for crimes committed during the war

of liberation. Kabir recalls that soon after he presented his defence, he was complimented by the judges on the wide range of his legal knowledge and the skill with which he had made the case for critical scrutiny over ICT proceedings. However, when the judicial body rendered a final determination on the matter in February 2012, it was in a tone of marked asperity. The three media persons held liable for contempt were discharged, though not without the judicial body observing in its obiter dicta that the article in question was indeed contemptuous. The New Age editor and the author of the impugned article were issued a grave “caution” by the ICT and told to be more mindful of the spirit and process of the law. In sharp contrast to its tone when hearing Kabir’s oral testimony, the tribunal held the editor ignorant of the “procedure of law”. Despite this, the ICT observed that the newspaper editor chose to argue his own defence rather than engage an attorney. Though the ICT did not view the journalist’s seeming reluctance to express any form of regret with favour, it had decided to discharge him as a gesture of its magnanimity.

Senior journalists in Bangladesh believe that the ICT is a very sensitive process that requires delicate handling by the media. In April 2012, the ICT summoned the editor and a reporter of the Bangla daily Sangram after it published a report, sourced to a group of lawyers in the district of Feni, criticising the decision to take on board fifteen witness testimonies gathered by a police official in the trial of JEI leader Sayedee. After hearing their defence, the tribunal ordered the two journalists detained till it rose for the day. Since the contempt matter was taken up towards the end of the day’s deliberations, the total time for which the journalists were detained, did not exceed half an hour. But the ICT was insistent on this symbolic punishment, to underline that it would not brook any challenges to its moral authority.

Journalists in Bangladesh are worried that under the law that invests the ICT with its powers, all its verdicts can be appealed before the Supreme Court. A conviction for contempt, which could run upto a year’s imprisonment, a fine of BDT (Bangladesh taka) five thousand, or both, cannot be appealed. Spokespersons for the ICT that SAMSN representatives have interacted with, concede that this is an extraordinary judicial authority which for precisely that reason, they are committed to using sparingly. They are insistent though, that media commentary that undermines faith in a process that the people regard as a vital part of coming to terms with their history, cannot go uncensured or unremarked.

Prior to the most recent charges, Mahmudur Rahman by his own estimation, faced no fewer than fifty-three cases, several of them involving charges by members of the Awami League over articles published in Amar Desh. One of these said that several war criminals were sheltering within the ruling party. Charges have also been framed against him under provisions of the law dealing with rioting and obstruction of the police, arising from the demonstration conducted by opposition political parties outside the police station where he was taken after his June 2010 arrest. Even before his most recent arrest, Mahmudur Rahman had been required to appear in courtrooms roughly three times every week in response to various summons.

The official story on Amar Desh – that it is in breach of several provisions of the law relating to the newspaper publication -- has convinced very few in Bangladesh. Yet several journalists’ groups have refrained from getting involved in Mahmudur Rahman’s cause because of a persistent belief that it is less about professional matters and more about politics by other means.

For reasons to do with the easy entry that political and business entities have managed into the media world, there is a debate underway among journalists about the best mode of regulation that the country could adopt. The Bangladesh Press Council (BPC), which was set up in 1974 and went into a period of oblivion before being revived in 1993, has powers of censure and admonishment. It can also act in defence of media rights by intervening when there is ground to suspect malafide cancellations of media registrations. Over the years, the council has evolved a point of view which holds that journalism is a profession that requires licensing. The model the BPC had in mind is analogous to the certification of legal or medical practitioners by empowered professional councils in Bangladesh, as also various other countries.

The idea of licensed journalists, while seemingly rather outlandish, does have some traction in the Bangladesh media community. More than anything else, this is an indication of how deeply the imperative of a professional code of ethics is felt among the country’s journalists. The applicable code promulgated by the BPC, includes a declaration in its preamble that the “war of liberation, its spirit and ideals must be sustained and upheld, and anything repugnant relative to the war of liberation and its spirit and ideals must not be printed, published or disseminated in any manner by the press”.

Quite clearly, this diktat of what is acceptable or not in media practice imposes a norm that is prone to arbitrary interpretation and abuse. As a plural society, despite its relatively high degree of linguistic uniformity, Bangladesh is home to a variety of ideas and opinions about the war of liberation that brought the nation into being in 1971. By seeking to bring homogeneity to this multiplicity of views, the media code proposed by the BPC was seen to make little contribution to media ethics or freedom. Conflicting readings On 27 March 2013, Bangladesh’s leading English newspaper, the Daily Star in an editorial on the nationwide observance of the day of national liberation, noted that appropriate tribute to the “heroic freedom fighters of 1971” would be the “quick trial of war criminals and execution of the verdicts”. “People from all walks of life”, it said, “commemorated the valiant sons of the soil, who had sacrificed their lives to liberate the country, with a fresh pledge to resist communal forces that were against the spirit of the Liberation War all along”. This attitude of drawing a clear linkage between the spirit of 1971 and the current imperative of completing the war crimes trials as a matter of urgent priority, marks a large part of the media commentary today in Bangladesh. In the political arena it is associated with a partisan tilt towards the Awami League. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which burnished its own claims to legitimacy with a rival interpretation of the war of liberation, evidently thinks otherwise. Though careful not to make too explicit a statement of opposition to the ICT, it is quick to make political capital out of any missteps in judicial process.

Competition between business groups is known to fuel a degree of political partisanship, which in turn feeds into the media world, undermining journalistic values of distance and dispassion. The Bangladesh Manobadhikar Shongbadik Forum (BMSF, or the Bangladesh Human Rights Reporters’ Forum) has in recent times been mobilising senior journalists in an active campaign to raise public awareness about the growing corporate control of the media. The integration of the media into a wider web of business relations, these activists argue, would seriously undermine its independence. The Transcom Group, which controls Prothom Alo and Daily Star, the country’s largest dailies in Bangla and English, has interests in processed foods and beverages, and electronics and electrical equipment among numerous others. The Basundhara group is involved in cement, real estate and steel. The Destiny group which runs Boisakhi TV channel, built its fortune on multi-level marketing and today faces serious criminal charges over financial wrongdoing. The Jamuna Group, which publishes the Bangla daily Jugantor, has at various times in its existence, had interests in textiles, real estate, chemicals and numerous other sectors. And the ATN group which launched Bangladesh’s first satellite TV channel has also ventured into textiles.

“A handful of powerful business groups have been taking control of the expanding media market”, says the BMSF: “Corporate groups are demanding relaxation of rules on media ownership and spending vast sums on political donations which are designed to influence policy decisions”. A newspaper under the title Dhaka Tribune was scheduled to be launched in the year under review. An editor and a number of senior journalists were taken on board with assurances of fair salaries and generous investments in news gathering and investigative reporting. But as the plans were set underway, the editor-designate found the ethos of the new newspaper to be opposed to any form of editorial freedom and unconcerned about fair employment practices. The editor-designate was within three months, unceremoniously ousted from office, putting the prospects of the newspaper’s launch under some jeopardy.

One of the most traumatic events of recent times was the twin murder of a journalist couple, Sagar Sarowar and Meherun Runi, in their home in Dhaka on 11 February 2012. Sarowar was a news editor for private television channel Maasranga, and his wife Runi was a senior reporter with another private television channel, ATN Bangla. Their bodies, both bearing deep stab wounds, were discovered on the morning of 12 February by a five-year old son.

As the official investigation failed to make much headway, Bangladesh’s journalists observed a one-hour work stoppage on 27 February. The demands for a thorough investigation and the swift arrest of those responsible, were made by a broad coalition of media organisations. Failing to get much of a response, the journalists unions began a relay hunger-strike on 2 March 2012.

Dhaka city police for their part, indicated they had a fair idea of the motive behind the crime, but would reveal no details because that, ostensibly, would impede the investigation. A city court meanwhile, issued an order restraining “speculative media commentary” on the matter.

This was read by many as an effort to restrain legitimate investigative journalism. At the time that this report is sent to press, there has been no progress in the investigations, at least as far as the public are aware.

On 20 May 2012, Mahfuzur Rahman, chairman of the ATN Bangla group mentioned at a formal gathering in London, that he had evidence about the double murder which indicated that it had nothing to do with journalism. Bangladesh’s journalist unions have since demanded that he either make the evidence public or withdraw the statement. As neither side yielded, the journalists organisations announced plans early in September to launch demonstrations outside the ATN Bangla office demanding police interrogation of Mahfuzur Rahman. An effort by Mahfuzur Rahman to secure a judicial injunction was not entertained and the demonstration went ahead. At the time of writing, the police are yet to reveal how far the investigations have proceeded, despite a public assurance by a senior government official that important information would be made public by 10 October.

On 13 July 2012, Mostafizur Rahman Sumon, a crime reporter with the web-based news portal, justnewsbd.com, was picked up in the vicinity of a computer store in Dhaka city, taken to an unknown location by the Detective Branch of the local police and held for two days, during which time he was allegedly tortured. The president and general secretary of the National Press Club, Kamal Uddin Sabuj and Syed Abdal Ahmad, denounced Sumon’s arrest and torture in a joint statement. The family of the journalist believes that he was being victimised for his active involvement in protests over the police failure in the Sagar-Runi twin murder.

On the one-year anniversary of the twin murder in 2013, unions and associations in Dhaka observed a day of protest, calling for results that have remained elusive despite judicial scrutiny over the investigation. After the initial failure by local police to identify the murderers or even establish a motive, the investigations were assigned to the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), an anti-terrorism force believed to have greater expertise. The RAB made nine arrests, of which an estimated four were of individuals suspected to have underworld connections. The most recent arrest, of the security guard at the apartment block where the murdered couple lived, was made in December 2012 and is yet to yield any results. DNA matching has also failed to yield any results. Meherun Runi’s brother, a plaintiff in a case before the High Court that is asking for a swift investigation, has been quoted as saying that the case is “going nowhere”. The struggle for wages and working conditions Despite their other differences, Bangladesh’s main journalists’ unions forged a common platform, the Shongbadik Sramik Karmachari Oikya Parishad (SSKOP, or United Committee of Working Journalists and Newspaper Employees) and organised early in March 2012 to demand the formal notification of a new wage fixation body. This followed the failure of Bangladesh’s Ministry for Information to formally constitute the eighth wage board for the newspaper industry through gazette by the end of February, despite an assurance from Information Minister Abul Kalam Azad at a meeting with the Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ) on 22 January.

Within days of Bangladesh’s journalists resolving on pressing their demand for a new wage deal, the Newspaper Owners’ Association of Bangladesh (NOAB) mobilised in opposition. "Forming a new wage board three and a half years after the seventh wage board award will put the newspaper industry into a big crisis," NOAB said in a statement issued on 19 March. The SSKOP responded within a day with the suggestion that the newspaper owners, rather than resist the formation of a body mandated by law, should adopt a strategy of cooperation in a spirit of transparency and openness.

Seven wage boards have been formed so far under a law adopted by Bangladesh’s parliament in 1974. The newspaper industry has resisted each of these and only complied with the statutory wage awards decreed after losing legal battles that have gone upto the country’s highest courts. The record of compliance remains patchy and uneven, with several of the new media outlets that began operations in recent boom years choosing to ignore the imperative of decent wages. The Eighth Wage Board was announced by the Government of Bangladesh after representations from the country’s journalists about increasing costs of living and growing job insecurity. A chair was nominated for the board and the various stakeholders from among news industry employees, including both sides of the Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ) have named their representatives for the board. Yet the formal notification was delayed since news industry owners continue to resist.

It was only in June 2012 that the full Wage Board was constituted, headed by Kazi Ebadul Haque, a former judge of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court and a former Chair of the BPC. Community radio and the right to information The growth of community radio broadcasting in Bangladesh could possibly hold the key to a more participatory and democratic media culture in the country. Several civil society organisations, had for long been campaigning for a liberalised policy environment for establishing community radio stations in Bangladesh. Among the last key decisions of the caretaker government that administered the country during the period of national “emergency” was a community radio policy that was relatively free of restrictions, and applications for broadcasting licences were invited in 2008.

Following the processing of a number of applications, a preliminary list of 116 was selected. After another long process of vetting, the Ministry of Information accorded primary approval to 12 entities for installing and operating community radio stations in April 2010. Another two licences were granted in a second round of approval a few weeks later. By January 2013, 16 community stations, including eight in cyclone-prone coastal areas were operational. By the end of the year, a network of NGO’s involved in radio and communications, believes that upto 60 stations could be operational. Though still only incipient, the community radio sector in Bangladesh currently offers more than 120 hours of programming every day, including weather forecasts, news, entertainment, talk shows and economic information.

Most stations are currently funded out of NGO budgets, which in turn are supported by international donors. A small number of radio stations are operated in partnership with development agencies, with the financial and material support of government. Most of the estimated 536 individuals --- predominantly drawn from the ranks of the youth – are volunteers. With electricity supply being far from assured, expenses of operating a station mount to include investments in captive power generation, which is beyond the means of most broadcasters.

Bangladesh has stepped way ahead of all other South Asian countries, except Nepal in the manner in which it has liberalised community radio broadcasting. There remain glitches in converting the promise of the policy to reality, but it is undoubtedly the next frontier of media development and growth in the country.

A right to information (RTI) law was introduced as an ordinance issued by the “emergency” regime in 2008. It was subsequently drafted as a formal act and passed by Bangladesh’s parliament early in 2009. By global standards, the act is considered rather modest in terms of the entitlements it confers on citizens. The constitution of the bodies that will oversee the exercise of the right and ensure that it is honoured, has also on occasion been a contentious process. As with any legislative initiative that seeks to introduce radical measures of accountability, the RTI process has a long way to travel in Bangladesh. Various civil society actors have been getting involved in the process of raising public awareness of the law. And media practitioners expect that they will also be part of that process of positive change.